Skin Deep
by Mable
Summary: ARI Nightmares #1: A technician is called out to deal with a malfunctioning animatronic and finds herself trapped in the middle of something much more insidious.


**Mable: To summarize, this is a story based off a picture I saw from a book I never read. Enjoy!**

* * *

_**Skin Deep**_

* * *

"You're so cute… But I could make you beautiful."

To a girl as impressionable and self-conscious about her looks as she was, this sounded like the breakthrough she had always wanted. Her eyes widened in desperate hope. "You can?"

"I will." The uncannily humanoid but no-doubt gorgeous creature seemed to smile wider. The painted face showing every ounce of honesty that it could as those eyes fixated on the girl. She stepped back slowly, without looking away for even a second, and up the steps. She moved both gracefully and stiffly as she stopped on the stage and gently drew open the curtain to the backstage. "Come to my dressing room."

"You have a dressing room?!" the girl asked in surprise. She imagined a room filled with makeup counters and lighted mirrors, with wigs hanging off hooks and dresses mounted on mannequins, and it coaxed her to follow up the steps. "Won't we get in trouble? I'm not supposed to go back there…"

"Nobody's going to know." The curtain was drawn back further and that painted smile coaxed her in. She reached out and laid her cold hand on the girl's shoulder to coax her in. "We're going to have so much fun…!"

With that, the girl followed the clown into the backroom, letting the curtain fall closed behind them.

Nobody had been there to see it. Nobody would be coming to get her.

* * *

There was something so relaxing about watching a nail polish brush work its magic. The woman watched without blinking as bright red spread evenly across the nail. It was like an art; she needed to be precise. Unfortunately, this was when the shrill ringing of the phone began. She huffed in disappointment and finished the stroke before setting the brush back in the bottle, then grabbing the phone off the desk.

"Afton Robotics Refurbishment and Repair," she answered shortly. She looked at her unfinished nail and frowned; that was going to bother her the entire call.

"_Hello. This is Madison with Circus Baby's Pizza Playhouse and we're looking to return our Baby model. It's been malfunctioning."_

"Mmm-hmm." She tried not to sound too interested. "What sort of malfunctions have you been seeing?"

"…_Mostly wandering off the stage and it hasn't been able to keep up with performances. We're just looking for scrap value, we don't want to have it repaired."_

"Alright, we can do that. Of course, we'll have to come out and give the estimate on sight based on the condition and age of the machine. When would you like to schedule your appointment?" This was always the telltale. If it was a few days or a few weeks, then they were probably being sincere and it was a genuine issue with the machine. Any sooner and it was a different case altogether.

"_Is there any chance you can do it tonight? We need to reopen tomorrow and we would rather… Not have Baby here when we do."_

So, it was going to be one of _those _cases, and on a night when she was here alone. Not that she would hand a case this delicate over to anyone else. "We can do that. I'll need the address." She jotted down the directions on a notepad left open on the coffee table, blew on her wet nails to dry them quicker, and returned to the call. "We should be there in about twenty minutes. Thank you for choosing Afton Robotics."

She ended the call and got up from the couch to get ready. She pulled a technician suit over her clothes, pulled back her hair into a ponytail, and slipped on a cap branded with the Afton logo. She shoved a pair of gloves into her pocket and headed out to the company van. Everything she needed to transport the animatronic was already inside, including a taser if things went south.

As soon as she got out on the road, she got out her cellphone and dialed a new number. It didn't take long before a female voice answered. _"Hello?"_

"Charlie, it's me. I know it's late, but I just got called out to deal with another Baby. I need you to go on your computer and look up Circus Baby's Pizza Playhouse and see if there's anything I need to know about. Specifically, something that might've happened in the last couple of days."

"_Wait, another Baby?... Sure, hold on a second." _She could be heard moving over the line. _"Just give me a couple of minutes to get it booted up. Is Michael with you?"_

"No, he's off tonight. Fritz too, it's just going to be me," the technician answered. The phone picked up the other's hum of concern and she huffed impatiently. "I heard that. I can handle this job on my own. You know I've been doing this just as long as either of them have."

"_I know. It's just… Heading out alone at night? You know I could come with you for moral support. It wouldn't be the first time I've been around broken-down equipment. Let alone a broken-down Baby."_

"I'm already on my way. I would have to turn around and even then, I doubt you're ready to rush out the door and jump in the van… And that's including where we would fit you in the van." She sent a side glance to the passenger's seat, which was filled up with toolboxes, loose tools, and a folded tarp. Basically, things that were supposed to be put away but never were, but that wasn't her job to do. She looked back to the road and caught sight of her unfinished fingernails. "Ugh, that's going to bother me all night."

"_What is?"_

"Nothing. It's not important. How is that research coming along?"

"_Still booting… Look, just keep me posted. If it starts to look like a more advanced case, then call me and I can drive there. Or call Michael."_

"Hmm. If it's a situation I can't handle then call you and drag you down with me, or cry to Michael and have him come fix it for me. Both are very tempting, but I think I can manage. You know how low-grade the Baby line is. The worst it can do is waddle after me," the technician said with a scoff. The call then fell into silence as she drove and waited for the information to come through.

She was almost at Circus Baby's Pizza Playhouse when the woman on the line spoke again.

"_I found something. It's not exactly about the restaurant, but a girl went missing a few days ago right in that area… Which considering the timing seems pretty suspicious. Her name was Sarah."_

This had confirmed the technician's suspicions. She couldn't help but get a sour frown as she thought about what that would mean, being that it was days later. "Thanks for the warning. I'll keep an eye out and I'll call you back once I get Baby on board."

"_I'll be here with a computer and a pot of coffee. Just… Be careful. Please."_

"I'll remember this the next time you call me overdramatic." The call ended shortly afterwards, and shortly after that she pulled up to Circus Baby's Pizza Playhouse.

The building looked rather interchangeable with most of the other Freddy Fazbear and Circus Baby restaurants she had been to over the years. Circus Baby's never got as big as Freddy's and usually hid underneath a circus veneer that was barely an inch deep. The food wasn't even properly circus themed and the prizes were typically recolored Baby dolls. She was always wary of those locations, but it was a job and someone had to do it.

The lights were on inside but she couldn't see anyone, and the parking lot was completely deserted. That alone was enough have her lean into the passenger's seat and retrieve a taser out of a toolbox. Just the weight of it on her belt was a comfort. She then stepped out of the van, got the dolly out of the back, and headed to the front door. It was unlocked, so she let herself inside.

"Hello?" she called as she let the door shut behind her. The front room was alit but devoid of anyone. Not even the woman who called looked to be there and looking into the adjoined arcade showed similar results. She wasn't ready to go looking for the animatronic herself just yet and called again. "Afton Robotics. Is anyone here?"

This time she got results. She heard footsteps approaching and looked over to see a man coming out of a hallway. He was dressed in what looked to be a typical uniform, orange in color with red pinstripes. If not for the 'security' label sewn above his pocket, she would've just assumed he was a floor worker who had stayed late.

"Sorry, I was in the back. They didn't tell me when you were going to get here," the security guard apologized. He offered his hand for her to shake. "I'm Ron, security."

"Liz," the technician introduced and shook his hand. Pointedly with the hand that didn't have the unfinished painting. It was a slight relief knowing that she wasn't going to be there alone. "So, where is Baby?"

"She's on the stage in Party Room B. Here, I'll show you." Ron led her back into the hallway, and she wheeled the dolly behind him.

The hallway led straight through the center of the business and most of the rooms looked connected, as she saw when she peered into one of the party rooms they passed. It was connected to the arcade on one side and to a prize corner on the other. On the opposite side of the hallway was the other party room, which he leaned into and turned the light on for. It was smaller than the other- probably made for private parties- with a petite stage, a few tables, and even a wide ball pit in the back.

But there was nothing on the stage. This must've not been expected as Ron stared at it blankly.

"The woman who called said it had a problem wandering off the stage," Liz said matter-of-factly. She sounded as unsurprised as could be and looked equally unphased.

"Right…" Ron gave a tired exhale. "It usually wanders off into the backstage storage room. It's right past that curtain… Unless she's back wandering outside again. I really hope not." He strode over, hurried up the steps, and disappeared behind the curtain. Shortly afterwards she heard him call, "Here she is!"

Seeing as he didn't come back out to help- and she waited long enough to make sure- the technician wheeled the dolly to the stairs. She then went first and tried to pull it up behind her. With the tall steps and the thick wheels, it was an awkward maneuver that she struggled with. Not due to strength but because the step kept getting stuck behind the wheel. Unwilling to go get the ramp from the van she continued to stubbornly tug and yank at the dolly until it finally popped up the steps.

By then she was flustered and annoyed and expected to spin around to see Ron staring at her. Instead she turned around and her eyes landed on the real center of attention.

It stood in the furthest corner of the storage room amongst stacks of cardboard boxes filled with party supplies. If not for the lights being on, it would've almost looked human in its stature, though impossibly thin. Lanky arms with a narrow waist and a long, thin neck that looked to barely hold its head. It was also short for a Baby model standing some height between a tall child and a short adult. Though straightening its neck could've very well added a few inches to that. It had a molded top, a featureless mid-drift, and a slightly torn fabric skirt.

What made it only more disturbing was how human-like the head and face had been made in comparison. She had pigtails made of fake hair instead of the typical plated ones the other models had. It had painted lips and cheeks, small ears and soft cheekbones, a delicate nose, and large eyes with sensually shaped lids and long, curled eyelashes. Instead of looking like something to appeal to children, the animatronic looked disturbingly sexualized, and Liz couldn't help but be unnerved.

Still, she had a job to do. The sooner she got this thing on the dolly and back to Afton's, the sooner she could return to looking at anything else. She wheeled the dolly over and looked for the best way to get it on. Very briefly her eyes fell on the boxes past the animatronic, stacked almost purposefully, but her focus returned to the task at hand.

"Isn't it going to be hard opening a Circus Baby establishment without a Baby on stage?" she asked Ron. She pulled on her work before reaching for the animatronic, but they did little to cut off the chill. The animatronic was ice cold and its body felt more like a heavy mannequin than a proper animatronic. She would have little difficulty dragging this one onto the dolly.

"Baby only performs for the private parties anyways, and we stopped getting those a long time ago. Mostly because nobody wants to look at that thing for more than a couple of minutes."

"Oh, I'm sure there's someone who would. But they wouldn't be the type of person you'd want around kids," Liz remarked with a smirk. She tilted Baby back and slid the dolly underneath her feet.

"Do you need some help?" Ron offered. While she had wanted the help earlier, now that she was getting offered it, she didn't want to take it. It would've been different if it was a full sized, seven-foot-tall Baby, but not this wispy, overly painted thing. She would do it herself just because she could.

"I've got it," Liz assured. She then worked the spindly animatronic onto the dolly and tilted her until it fell against the dolly with a clatter. It stayed just as stiff and didn't respond to any stimulation, like it had been shut down. With how cold it was the technician wouldn't be surprised if it had been. She tied it to the dolly and began to wheel it out. "You can help me get it down the stairs though."

Ron did so and soon she was wheeling it out of the party room and down the hall. She noticed quickly that having it facing her, hair hanging over the top of the dolly and barely shielding its glassy eyes, was a mistake. She would never understand why someone would choose to have this in their restaurant instead of something more child friendly and less overtly mature.

The ramp was pulled out and the dolly wheeled into the back of the van. With the animatronic already tethered to the dolly, Liz decided to just tie down the dolly itself and let it keep everything in place. Then she hopped out of the back of the van and shut the doors behind her.

"We'll need to check the functionality of the animatronic and whether it can be fully refurbished, but we're looking at about two thousand to twenty-five hundred. We'll call in a few days with an estimate," the technician said as she dusted off her gloves. She then paused there a moment, with her mind quickly going back to the missing girl and the boxes in the storage room. The ones Baby had been propped in front of like she was guarding them. "…Is there any way I could use your bathroom? I don't want to try stopping at a gas station with that in the back."

"Sure. No problem. You saw it in the hallway?" Liz nodded and followed Ron back inside. He escorted her to the bathrooms at the front of the hallway before continuing into the back. "I'm just going to be back in the office. Just give me a shout when you're done so I can lock up," he said. She nodded and watched him head down the hallway, half stepping into the woman's room.

He reached into Party Room B to turn off the light before continuing to the end of the hall and stepping into a room at the end. That must've been the office. It looked far enough away that he possibly wouldn't hear her, but her time was extremely limited. As soon as he was gone, she hurried down the hall and slipped back into the party room. It was dark inside, but she had a vague idea where she was going.

Once behind the curtain, Liz turned on a small flashlight she had attached to her keychain and looked around. The light source was barely enough to illuminate the space right in front of her, but she knew where she was going first, and quietly made her way over to the boxes. She had assumed that there were party supplies inside. Something told her maybe there was something else being hidden in plain sight.

The technician skimmed through a box of paper plates before moving it aside and grabbing another. In her haste the stack of boxes tilted further back and fell against the wall, and she barely managed to grab them and keep them from clattering to the floor. It was through this that she noticed what looked like an indention in the wall. Curious, she moved the boxes quickly and uncovered what it was she had seen.

It looked like a panel on the wall. It was painted the same to hide it and after pressing on it a bit she realized that it would slide aside. Behind it was a dark crawlspace.

"Of course. Why am I even surprised?" She sighed and leaned inside to shine the flashlight around. The space was narrow and smelled musty, like a mixture of mildew and urine. It didn't detour her from climbing inside. "At least I'm wearing gloves," she muttered. It didn't matter how much she acted unbothered, there was a sour feeling in her gut.

The crawlspace was almost as tall as the room that led into it and about three feet wide. A few boxes had been shoved in here too along with some old props and a few rolls of insulation. Things lost to time and now stacked precariously in her way. Save for a slender walkway made between a roll of insulation and the wall. So narrow that only someone, or something, terribly thin would slip by. Liz was not as thin, but she tried to squeeze her way through without knocking everything over. She shined her light further back into the crawlspace.

It was then that the light faintly reached something in the very back. It almost looked like a leg. In an instant, Liz's blood ran cold.

"Oh God…" she muttered. In the back of her mind she added, "_Not another one…" _

The technician squeezed out from the space and hurried forward to see that it was a leg and the body it was attached to.

It was a girl. It was hard to tell her exact age, but she looked young, maybe her early teens. She was laying on her side with her arms bound behind her and here ankles wrapped in duct tape. A band of duct tape stretched over her mouth with something stuck out of it. Upon looking closer Liz realized it was a kitchen sponge. There was a half-emptied jug of water in the corner beside the girl. It was clear that this was set up so she could still drink water.

Someone put her back here with the intention of keeping her alive until she slowly succumbed to starvation. From the slight paleness and gauntness in her cheeks it was clear that it had already been a few days.

It was such a vile and twisted act, and yet the technician knew why they did it. It was for her skin. To slowly kill the girl and salvage the skin. _They_ were always fixated on the skin, and no human would do this.

Liz reached forward and tentatively patted the girl's cheek. The girl's eyes fluttered open revealing a glassy and dazed gaze. She had the distant look of someone who was already giving up, but when she looked up and saw the stranger kneeling alongside her those eyes popped open with a new life. She gave a muffled noise suffocated by the tape and the sponge.

"Shh. It's okay, I'm going to get you out of here. I'm going to need you to try and stay calm," the technician coaxed. The girl's eyes welled up with tears.

She carefully turned the girl further onto her belly to look at the duct tape on her arms. From how they were tucked behind her and her legs were wrapped, and the garbage stacked in the crawlspace, it would've been impossible for her to save herself. Liz felt a wave of anger as she used her keys to tear apart the tape and unwrapped it from her limbs.

"She's going to come back!" the girl whispered frantically. She grabbed at Liz's arm with weak, shaking hands. "You have to call the police, _please!_"

"I'm going to as soon as I get you out of here, I promise. You're safe now," the technician reassured. "My name's Liz. Are you Sarah?"

The girl looked slightly confused and swallowed a choke to ask, "H-How did you know…?"

The woman got a half-smile. "You're kind of a hot topic right now. Can you stand?"

Sarah nodded and started to stand. She seemed to overestimate herself as it took her a few tries to even get up and then Liz had to help her the rest of the way. She teetered, either from the lack of food or enough water or because of how her legs had been tied. It was a relief that she could walk at all. Liz helped maneuver her through the narrow space.

"Who did this to you? Careful, watch your step," she warned, half lifting the girl as she tried to help her along.

"It was- It was Eleanor," Sarah said, much to the woman's confusion.

"Eleanor?" She furrowed her brows a little as he eyes flickered between the girl and then back ahead.

"She's the doll- She's Baby, but she told me to call her Eleanor… She said she liked it better…" The girl looked down doubtfully, trying to cover herself once she realized that the dampness in her pants was visible. "You have to believe me. I know she just looks like a doll, but she's not! She told me she was going to make me beautiful and she put me and here and just- she just left me!"

Now Sarah began to sob heavily into her free hand. All the stress came down on her at once and while Liz wanted to console her, she knew that it was more important to get the girl to safety. She didn't even know if there were more active animatronics that could start wandering the building or not, and she didn't even know if the employees were in on it. They seemed more than willing to cover it all up.

It only occurred to her then that if she would've driven off the girl would've been left to die. That sent a chill down her spine.

"Don't worry about her. She's not going to hurt anyone ever again," Liz said coldly. She would make sure of it. For now, she focused on the task at hand and climbed out of the crawlspace, helping Sarah climb out behind her. The girl looked around warily. "She's not in here. You're safe."

Sarah nodded and followed along with her. Liz kept her arm around the girl to help her walk since it was clear that she was still struggling. Once they got out to the hallway, Liz looked down towards the office and considered going to Ron. The suspicion returned quickly and instead she started to lead the girl to the front door. She went to push open the front door, but it didn't budge. She pushed again then shook it with all her strength to no avail. It was locked tight.

Liz swore under her breath while Sarah started to hyperventilate. The woman assured her, "The security guard must've locked up. He's in the back, so we'll just go back there and get him."

She looked around for a moment as she considered leaving the girl there to wait but then decided against it. She goaded her to leave the front door and started back down the hallway. The lights were still on and everything was still quiet, and the locked door didn't worry her nearly as much as anything else had that evening.

Not nearly as much as when she got close enough to the half open office door only to realize how dark it was inside. There looked to be a dull, flickering white light, but when Ron opened the door in front of her earlier, she had clearly seen a normal fluorescent glow illuminating the room. It caused her to stop in her tracks and stare at the door. She processed it for a few seconds before calling out.

"Ron?"

There was no response. Under any other circumstances, Liz would've spared herself by walking off and letting whatever it was just be. Except this time they couldn't leave unless she could unlock the door, since she couldn't see a backdoor or emergency exit and the windows didn't look like the type that would open or break easily. She swallowed the uneasy feeling and pushed Sarah back a bit.

"Wait here," she whispered. The girl nodded slowly, and the technician walked up to the office door. Leaning back as far as she could, she cautiously pushed it open the rest of the way.

As the door creaked open the light from the hallway began to pour in. It fell over the desk and onto a static covered monitor resting on it and a knocked over thermos of coffee. It looked like it had been sabotaged.

The light crept over the office chair and slowly revealed the man slumped in it, arms dangling and head laying over the back. It was Ron, and there was what looked to be a phone cord tied tightly around his neck.

Liz gasped through her teeth and ran in. In an instant she was tearing at the cord around his neck, which was wrapped around multiple times before being tied like a bow. She managed to get it undone and off. She could see the wounds on his neck and couldn't hear any sign of breathing. She tilted back his head and pried open his mouth, forcing air into it, trying to revive him and seeing no results.

Eventually she pulled her head back and just stared down at him with wide eyes filled with horror. He had clearly been murdered recently and she wondered if he had even been the one to lock the door. She still started to pat him down for keys, looking into his uniform pocket and feeling around his belt. _"Where are they?!"_

The answer came with a light jingling noise from behind her. Liz's head snapped around to look towards the office door in time to see it creeping closed, and to see that she was not alone in the room.

There it was, the animatronic she thought was shut down and tied up in her car, the one with the gaudy face and the lying grin: Baby. Regardless of what it called itself, it was a Baby, and this one was a monster.

And in that instant, it pounced on the technician and knocked her to the floor. Liz only had a second to react before the animatronic stabbed something down at her. Thinking it was a knife, she grabbed it by both its wrists and tried to hold it back. Only a few inches from her face could she see that it was instead a thick pair of heavy-duty scissors. Each blade aimed down into one of her widened eyes. Sarah screamed from outside the office just in time to snap her from her shock.

"Run!" Liz yelled out to her. She didn't know if the girl did or not, she was too busy trying to keep the blades back. All the animatronic's strength was bearing down and causing her own arms to tremble as they barely held. If it had been one of the larger models she would've already been dead, but its slender frame lowered its strength to an almost human level, if only a touch stronger than the technician herself.

Her heart was already beginning to pound when the Baby leaned in closer. It looked at her almost curiously with raised eye lids and pinprick pupils. Its painted smile was static as it spoke in its soft voice.

"You have such beautiful eyes. They sparkle like diamonds," Eleanor cooed. Her voice lowered dangerously. "But do they pop like balloons? Let's see."

Suddenly it shoved down with all its strength. Liz couldn't hold it so in the last second she shoved upwards with all her strength. The scissors just grazed her head and stabbed into her hat that had fallen off in the scuffle. The technician swung out and punched the bot sharply in the neck. It caused its head to flop and the ridged metal to bend and gave enough leverage for Liz to elbow it off the rest of the way, clamor to her feet, and bolt out of the office.

Even with her eyes uninjured, Liz was running blind. Sarah was nowhere to be seen, the keys to the front door were still in Eleanor's possession, and the mannequin-like creature was already in pursuit. She could hear its footsteps pattering on the tiled floor as it tried to catch up. It would soon be upon her and its scissors would soon be stabbing through her back.

Panicking, the technician took a sharp corner and ran through the other party room and tried to lose her pursuer through the arcade. Both were thankfully packed with tables and machines to slow down the chase. It would give her more time but not enough time. She needed to find somewhere to hide where she could get the taser out and get it turned on, so when she found herself back in the hallway she darted into the woman's bathroom, ran into the furthest stall, and locked the door.

Not that it would keep it out. The space underneath the doors were more than enough for it to climb under, and if it came in it would notice one of the doors shut and the others cracked open. After a moment of consideration, Liz decided to risk it by unlatching and opening the bathroom door, climbing up onto the toilet, and hoping that it was stupid enough to believe that nobody was in there.

Then she pulled the taser off her belt and turned it on with a small click. The taser was the one thing that could take down these hulking, metal zombies, except even it would be handicapped. Animatronics made by Afton Robotics were notorious for resisting controlled shocks. While one jolt could stop a Freddy Fazbear in its tracks, a Baby model could keep pressing on for a second or a third. No matter how small it was, it was still a Baby, which meant it would take more than one hit to take it down.

The sound of its tapping footsteps caused Liz to stiffen up. She tightened her grasp on the taser, realizing quickly that if she was going to take down this thing she would need to take it off guard, and she couldn't do that when it had her cornered into the bathroom. From how it slowly crept into the room it was clear that it suspected her to be there. It slowly inched towards the stall with each patient and graceful step.

Liz held the taser tightly in her hand and waited for that long, cold arm to slide in and push the door open. And right as the steps started to close in-.

There was a loud bumping from the next room. Followed by a clattering noise that almost sounded like the rattling of the balls in the ball pit.

Eleanor halted in its tracks before spinning around. Its neck creaked as she craned it around and tilted her head in curiosity. "Sarah…" she whispered in a breathy tone. Not one of adoration or any form of affection but one of a giddy sadism, sinister and contemplative. All at once it lost interest in the seemingly empty bathroom and staggered out into the hallway to pursue its prey.

The technician gulped in a mouthful of air as she got a moment to breathe. She didn't have long to rest though; if its eagerness was any indication, Sarah didn't have much time.

In the next Party Room, Sarah was oblivious to what was happening between the technician and the animatronic. As far as she had known they were still fighting in the office and it wasn't until she heard the footsteps in the next room that she realized Eleanor was looking for her. She knew she had to hide. Unwilling to return to the crawlspace, her gaze fell on the ball pit and she knew it was her best bet.

The girl tried to lower herself in as quietly as she could, but her weak body was clumsy, and she made more noise getting in than she intended. Once under the plastic balls she almost felt hidden. It almost gave her a false sense of security until she heard those familiar footsteps again. She knew it was _her_, and she closed her eyes and held her breath.

"Sarah?" Eleanor's quiet voice called out. She came straight to the ball pit, popping up beside it and leaning over the edge to stare into it. Thankfully Sarah was down at the other end, but it was little protection.

"Sarah?" Eleanor called again. She reached in with a long, thin arm and stirred some of the balls at the top. They clattered together and Sarah closed her eyes tighter at the noise. "Don't hide from me. I was only doing what you wanted. I was going to make us both beautiful, inside and out!" But Sarah couldn't believe her anymore. "I know you still want that… And if you come out now, I still can. There's still time for me to fix all your flaws. To make a brand new you!"

Sarah still said nothing. Eleanor realized that it needed better bait.

"And if you come out now, nobody else needs to get hurt. Look what happened because you tried to abandon me. One person's life is already on your hands. That seems pretty selfish of you. Pretty selfish for such an _ugly girl_."

Sarah's eyes welled up in new tears as she covered her mouth, still unwilling to speak.

"…No? You still won't come out?"

Sarah tried to suppress her shuddering breaths and refused to say a word.

"…Then I'm coming in."

Eleanor suddenly lurched forward and slipped into the ball pit like she was sliding into water. Sarah's eyes opened in horror as she heard the rustling of the balls from Eleanor crawling along the bottom of the pit towards her. Like she already knew exactly where the girl was. With a short gasp, Sarah stood up and climbed out of the ball pit.

Halfway out a cold hand grabbed her ankle and tried to tug her back in. Sarah screamed and turned over before weakly kicking with her other foot. The hand held firmly as Eleanor's head began to slowly rise out of the pit, widened eyes and wicked smile stuck firm as she stared down her victim. Sarah began to panic and thrash, got a burst of energy in her weakened state, and just barely managing to yank free. She crawled to her feet and ran for the door.

As soon as Sarah ran through, she was grabbed and pulled beside the door. She suppressed a scream when she recognized that it was Liz who had ahold of her. The technician was pressed up against the wall with the taser grasped tightly in her hand and poised to lash out. Her eyes were narrowed with intense focus as she waited for the animatronic to come through. Any second now…

It suddenly popped out of the door. The technician lashed out as quick as a viper and jabbed the taser against its belly. A controlled shock surged through the spindly Baby's body, causing her to seize and toss her head like she was possessed. The taser shut stopped on its own and Eleanor slumped forward with its arms hanging and its hair shielding its face. It stubbornly refused to drop the scissors.

Both humans waited with bated breath. It looked like the animatronic had been shut down, but Liz knew better when it was still capable of holding its weapon. She waited until she was sure that the taser had recharged before she started to inch closer. Sarah tried to stop her by grabbing her arm but was shrugged off. She shirked back as the technician stepped closer.

Then Eleanor suddenly sliced out with the scissors. Liz swung back just in time to dodge them and they struck the wall. She grabbed the cold arm and swung in again, now aiming for that elongated neck, when her wrist was caught. The bot held her at bay as it tried to pull the scissors back. It looked so calm, probably because of its inability to show varied expressions when it had a stuck smile. But Liz could, and she glared at it with all the hatred she could muster.

She finally overpowered the animatronic's grip and jammed the taser against its neck. She administered another controlled shock and this time wrenched the scissors from its grasp as it trembled, her hands protected from the shock by the gloves' insulation. When the taser shut off again and Eleanor began to droop, the technician shoved it back. It wobbled before collapsing back on to the tile. It was still seized with that stiff smile and its arms stretched out in front of it.

Liz dropped down and administered a third shock to its sternum and watched it shudder more aggressively. That would have to be enough, and she flipped it over onto its front and searched its back for a panel. There was the thin outline of one on the upper back that was barely visible, but she spotted it, opened the scissors, and jammed them into the crack to pry it open. The panel was shoddily attached and easy to pry open, revealing all the mechanics inside.

"Is she- Is she dead?" Sarah asked hesitantly.

"It wasn't ever alive," Liz remarked. Then she lowered in the scissors and started to snip every wire she could fine. She slowly dismantled the bot from the inside as the girl watched from behind, clipping wires and pulling gears loose to toss into its empty cavity. It was cathartic, wonderful, and she didn't even have to look at its face.

If only every Baby could receive this treatment.

Only once she was sure that the animatronic was fully sabotaged did Liz shakily stand. Her heart was still pounding and with the tension finally dying down she could feel the weight of all the energy she had used. Looking to Sarah, she could tell that the girl was starting to falter too. What little energy reserves she had left were spent in the struggle and now she looked like she would collapse at any moment.

With a sigh, Liz laid a hand on her shoulder. "Go wait by the front door. I'm going to look for the keys." Then gave her a gentle push to get her going.

Ron was still slumped in the office chair unmoving and it was seeming less likely that she had saved him in time. She didn't check his pulse; she didn't want to know when there was nothing she could do. The keys were on the office floor, having been dropped when Eleanor had first attacked, and Liz grabbed her hat and hurried back out to the front door.

She half-expected the machine to be missing when she returned, having ignored its injuries and crawled off somewhere to terrorize someone else. She sent a cold glare at it as she passed.

It didn't take long to get the door unlocked and Liz led Sarah out to her van where she opened the back and started getting the dolly back out. As expected, the tethers she tied the animatronic down with had been cut, so it must've had the scissors already. She didn't know where and didn't really care enough to wonder why.

"What are you doing?" Sarah asked.

"My job," the technician replied emotionlessly. "I'll call 911 once I get her in the van." Sarah looked confused and uneased but didn't ask anymore questions. Before Liz could wheel it back inside, she hesitated and looked to the girl again. "…You should tell them what happened to you. The cops, your parents; tell them the truth… The only thing you can't tell them is that I have Baby."

"What?"

"The truth is this has happened before. People get hurt, people die, and nobody wants to believe that it's the machines… So, they get people like me to fix them back up and get them back out into restaurants. If they took it as evidence, I can't guarantee it won't eventually be auctioned, cleaned up, and put back up on a stage." Sarah's face grew pale in horror. "But I know that I can get rid of it for good. Do you trust me?"

"…Yes." It was hard for her to say that after what happened, Liz understood that. "Okay, I won't tell them. Just… Just get rid of her…" Sarah sat down in the back of the van. "I feel dizzy…"

"Just try to stay calm and relax. We're going to get you help very soon."

Liz knew she was starving and knew that she had to get help soon, so she hastily headed inside. The animatronic had still not moved and she maneuvered it back onto the dolly before rolling it out and tethering it into the van. This time she took no risks, tying it down with double the tethers and hiding it underneath a tarp. Finally, she called 911 and waited for the police and ambulance to arrive.

Sarah had told them everything while the paramedics were checking her and loading her into the ambulance. She told them how long she had been kept in the crawlspace, she told them how she had been lured back there, and she told them exactly what did it to her. As expected, they didn't believe her. Liz could overhear the police talking and knew they had already dismissed the thought that it was an animatronic, especially once she gave the physical description which sounded like a human. They thought she was delirious.

They would believe Liz though. She gave the same description but lied and said she thought it was a woman. She showed where her hat was stabbed, she told them how she found Ron, and finished her story by claiming that she the woman ran off and that she called 911 once she was sure they were safe. They didn't fact-check too intensely with Sarah, who they thought was hysterical, so they believed this. Everything seemed to fit too well for them, so they started searching for the suspect. But they wouldn't find her.

It was a couple of hours later when Liz was finally allowed to head back home. Once she was back in the van, she turned her cellphone back on, which she had off during her time with the police and found numerous missed calls and messages left behind. She didn't even have to look to know that most were Michael, but she would call him back later. Instead, she kept her promise and called back her friend.

"_Hello? Lizzie?" _She sounded frantic on the line.

"It's me again," Liz answered with exhaustion. "I've been at the police station giving statements. I found the girl."

"_I was afraid that was going to happen… Was she…? You know."_

"She was alive. She's in the hospital right now, but she's going to live."

"_Oh! Oh, thank goodness! I thought- when you never called, I thought maybe something happened."_

"Something did happen. That bitch, Baby, killed a nightguard and tried to stab me in the eyes with a pair of scissors. It had that girl tied up and was trying to starve her to death. Hideous thing. I have it tied up in the back right now, but I've already shut it down."

"_Oh my God… Well, at least you were able to stop it and you found the girl. That was the ultimate goal, wasn't it? It's just a shame that someone got hurt in the process…"_

"Right…" The technician gave an exhausted sigh and stared out the window at the occasional car passing in the night. "…Did I ever tell you the story about my accident?"

"_The one with Baby? Most of it."_

"Then I'm telling the rest of it," Liz said with determination. "I was at a party with one of the first Baby models out of the factory. She was huge, bigger than any animatronic I've seen since. Taller than any adult. I should've been afraid of her but for some reason I thought she was the most amazing thing I had ever seen. I always wanted to get close, but always told not to. Until this party. All the other kids were running around and none of the adults were there, so I walked up to Baby to introduce myself. She even made me an ice cream cone."

She took a deep breath as she stared dead ahead. "…But when I went to take it, she grabbed me. This… Claw came out of her and got me by the arm. I think it might've been going for my neck, but I started turning the second she opened, and that might've been the only thing that saved me. She tried to pull me inside but at the angle she couldn't do it in time. One of the parents heard me screaming and had to pry Baby off of me. My arm was pulled out of socket, I had to go to the hospital, CPS opened an investigation on the whole family, and Baby found herself at the bottom of a garbage chute."

"_I remember those couple of weeks when you guys came to stay with us. I didn't know it was because that happened, and you didn't say anything."_

"I was a stupid kid. I thought "Daddy" was going to make it all better… But all he did was make it worse. All he did was fill the world with more of these things and die, leaving me to occasionally get a late-night call about some repulsive clown doll that nobody wants and that I have to get rid of." The technician's ungloved hands tightened on the steering wheel with bubbling anger. "And do you know what's worse? They look like me. I can't explain it, but somehow they all look like me, and that's _disgusting_."

"_But they don't. I know you feel like they do, but trust me, they don't look anything like you." _Liz wasn't sure if she was being honest or trying to spare her feelings. _"…Hey. It's not that late, do you want to come over? I don't know if you should be alone after all of that. I know you're fine and you can handle it, but you don't have be. We could just watch a movie or something."_

The technician considered it for a moment. She didn't want it to seem like she was shaken by all this, especially since she vented about her childhood, but the offer was tempting. "…Alright, I'll come by. It might take a while for me to get there. I have to stop off at the factory and get rid of this first."

"_I was sort of hoping you would. Make sure to call Michael too. He's really worried."_

"I will… I'll see you in a little bit." With that, Liz ended the call and started up the van. She still had work ahead of her and she was already feeling the soreness in her muscles from what already transpired that night. But Baby couldn't wait for morning; the sooner it was dealt with, the sooner everyone could move on.

Soon the police would be looking for the murderer to bring to justice, but they would never find her. By then she would've already taken a one-way trip into the furnace, where she belonged. And if there was anything sentient and alive in "Eleanor", hopefully it would find its justice wherever her father had been sent. It had to be equally hot.

Elizabeth took one last look at her fingernails, making a mental note to fix them before she left, and began to drive back to Afton Robotics.

* * *

_**FIN**_


End file.
